Very well put. I find all this so clear, obvious even, that it's just a mystery why so many people fail to see it - including the last bit about withdrawing from the settlements and establishing a Palestinian state.

You are certainly hitting them for six. Keep up the good work Melanie.

Just a small quibble. I just dont think that yet another Muslim state has to be created in the tiny sliver of land that is Israel. Firstly, Palestinians want the destruction of Israel and secondly, Judea and Samaria are part of historic Israel.

Tony Judt raises some very valid points and highlights one unescapable fact - 'The depressing truth is that Israel today is bad for the Jews'.

Well Anonymous of October 12, nearly every other place has been worse for them, except the United States and Britain. Even France has seen mobs baying "Kill the Jews" just a little over a century ago.

The conflict could stop, tomorrow, if the Arabs would give up trying to kill the Jews and destroy Israel. I do believe that the settlements in Judea and Samaria would be no bar to peace if the Arabs wanted a negotiated solution. They do not want that; they want to finish the job Hitler started.

DP and Michael: Yes the conflict would stop if the Arabs gave up trying to destroy Israel, but then what? What about the millions of Arabs living west of the Jordan river? Are they to be kept permanently in a subject status, or given full rights and eventually simply overwhelm the Jewish inhabitants by sheer numbers?
Actually, the settlements are not wrong theoretically - Jews should have the right to live where they want, but they are certainly wrong politically, and in today's circumstances - also morally.

Why this bizarre assumption that anything Israel does (including withdrawal of settlements) or anything that any other kufr nation attacked by Islam does, will make one jot of difference? Which part of "slaughter the infidel" don't you understand? Where in the world have muslims been won over by appeasement? What is the muslim excuse in Sudan, The Philipines, Indonesia, India, France, Macedonia, etc? India surrendered a huge part of its territory to create the monstrosity called Pakistan and subsidised hajj pilgrimages, while infidels were ethnically cleansed in Pakistan. France has been rimming the arabs for their oil contracts for decades; the muslim response has been an undeclared civil war in the outer suburbs of France. If you think things are bad today, remeber that today's situation in Israel is the result of the concessions Israel made under the Oslo Death Accords. If you want to see the future of an Israel which makes further concessions, look at Sudan and Pakistan. If you think appeasement of totalitarianism works, look at Czechoslovakia. If you want to know what works against islamic terror, look at Tora Bora and Guantanomo Bay, and stop trying to be noble. As Leonard Cohen said, there is no noble place in a massacre.

"The problem with Israel, in short, is not—as is sometimes suggested—that it is a European "enclave" in the Arab world; but rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law." Judt

Eritrea, Abkhazia, Chiapas, Tatarstan, Corsica, Yemen, Xinjiang, Quebec, Gaucho Pampa, Lombardi, Sri Lanka, Somaliland, Cabinda, Assam, Irian Jaya, Transnistria, Crimea, Scotland, Kashmir,Wales,Chechnya,Catalonia,East Timor,Bosnia,Serbia,Montegnegro…

Someone should tell these and others that they are too late and that separatist movements are passe.

‘Open frontiers’…Tell that to the Hispanic people south of Arizona!

Clem Snide: If you want to see the future of Israel that withdraws from the West Bank unilaterally, look at the Lebanese border: instead of the daily losses Israel was suffering there, now they lob a rocket across every few months. Nobody sane thinks the Palestinians are suddenly going to change and make peace: the withdrawal is for Israel's sake, not theirs. And it should be in one go (again like Lebanon) - the problem with Oslo et al is that it's all done in stages, giving the rejectionists plenty of chances to throw spanners in the works.

"the muslim response has been an undeclared civil war in the outer suburbs of France."!!!!!

Please explain?

In the absence of any evidence justifying this extraordinary claim one can only assume the rest of what you wrote is equal nonsense.

And where exactly are "The outer suburbs of France"? Belgium, Spain, the UK?

By "outer suburbs" he is referring to the "banlieus" of French cities. Many of them are dominated by Muslim gangs that enforce Sharia laws on inhabitants, even on non-Muslim women who must wear burkas or risk rape. Many of these are no-go areas for the French police. They have given up on enforcing French law in them.

Sounds rather like a civil war to me. You could also call it rampant criminality, but it is done with the intention of ultimately turning France, by violence, into a Sharia-obedient, Muslim-ruled country.

This is what I love about professors. They propose solutions ("binational state") but take no responsibility for specifying how their solution would work in practice---which in this case, it obviously can't

It's as if an engineer designed an elegant machine which will work only if all friction is totally eliminated--and then congratulated himself on a job well done, and sneered at the fools who wouldn't manufacture his machine.

Build the wall, get behind it & wait for the attack. Unfortunately that is the *best* option for Israel now.

Related - Any bets on when the Hashemites will be overthrown by the Jordanian Palestinians? Before or after The Islamic Peoples Republic of Palestine is created?

The British mandate of Palestine included all of the former Ottoman province of Jerusalem.
If you look at the map of that province, and of the British mandate you will notice that it includes the entire Arab state of Jordan. The Palestinain Arabs already have a state, it is Jordan. Why do they need another? Seems like the biggest problem for the Palestinain Arabs is that the Arab states do not what this problem solved, it is great for hiding their own internal problems.

I thought that the crack " I disagree with one point so I will ignore the rest" is typical of people who actually don't have any answers, and whose knowledge of the subject under discussion is weak. Wonder if this is true in this case.

It seems to me that the people who don't have any answers are more likely to be those who can't spell Palestinian or Want.

You know, I knew someone would say that.

Well P Clarke, which of my points do you disagree with, and what is your disagreement?

Melanie:

Israel is not looking to rule the Palestinains. She would like to disengage from them and let them stew in their own hatred and ignorance. What she cannot do is allow them to paln and execute terror attacks. I think that settlements were foolish but to the Palestinian mind, Tel Aviv is every bit a 'settlment' as is "Ariel." I thin that even if she destroyed every last settlemnt on the West Bank (and some of those places have been there for over 30 years, hardly a 'settlement') the Palestinians would merely chase them (or at least try) to the gates of Tel Aviv.

Sorry for the misspellings. Too early in the morning
for me.

To begin with, suggesting that the Palestinians go to Jordan is a no-brainer. There is no way, ever, that they are going to accept it as a solution, however many 70 year old maps are in circulation. Anyone adopting it as a way forward would merely be condemning both the Israelis and the Palestinians to an endless future of war and mutal death.

For what it's worth, I favour Melanie's solution. Call the Palestinian's bluff. Withdraw from the settlements, create a viable Palestinian state around agreed borders, and see what happens.

If, afterwards, the new Palestinian state were to attack Israel it would then be clear to everyone where right and wrong lay, and Israel would be free to defend itself and call on the UN for support if necessary.

Melanie thinks the attack would be inevitable, but I'm not so sure.

Isn't this essentially what the Oslo peace accords were all about. At the start of the current upsurge in terrorism over 90% of the West Bank and the Gaza strip had been given to the newly formed Palestinian Authority. I think to many people, myself included, the land for peace has already been tried and it failed, so why would you try it again.

The PLO was founded in 1964, long before the West Bank and the Gaza strip were occupied. The charter of Hamas includes wiping out the state of Israel. There is no evidence of any will to have peace on that side of the fence. Isn't true that no Arab state formally recognises the right of Israel to exist?

The situtaion of the Palestinian refugees wouldn't be addressed at all by a pull back to the 67 borders. Where would you expect them to go?
For the main part they don't currently live in either of the WB or Gaza, they are in camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Although there are camps in both the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
There can be no solution if you don't find a way forward for these people (4.25 million according to the UN website). A pull back would still leave these people in the UN camps. There are fewer people living in the West Bank and the Gaza strip put together than in the camps.

Their population growth is enormous, there is no economic restriction on them, all the food and water that they require is supplied by the UN. Not that I am suggesting the UN should stop feeding them, but by guranteeing a right to return to descendants, all that is created is an ever larger mess that does the Palestinian refugees no good at all.

After 48 the Arab states by and large expelled their Jewish citizens (presumably not zionists), the number of these is of the same order of magnitude as the number of original Palestinian refugees. Why not let the Palestinians refugees make a fresh start in the wider Arab world which has the capacity to absorb them. But most Arab states forbid Palestinians to settle, to own land or to hold jobs in the Arab states.

Do you think that these refugees deserve a future, or should they be kept in camps forever?All based on a false promise of return. Unless a lot of people vanish from Israel (pop 7 million) there is no room for the refugees to go there. If not there, where?

Come on Michael Lonie -- 'except Britain and the United States'? Go back one hundred years and compare the status of Jews in the US with their status in Germany and France. Lots of Jewish professors at Harvard and Yale, right?

Of course, neither the US or Britain partook in the holocaust. But look what the US was doing to blacks and Japanese during WWII. Britain and the US look better than mainland Europe because they had the good fortune to be separated by water from it, and never got invaded. Both countries had good swathes of anti-Semites in their ruling classes, ready and willing.

"[Israeli]...lands seized in war..." Let's see now, how did that war arise? Bellicose, plundering hordes of Jooooooooooos, that's how.

The solution is simple: have Sharon fire up the tanks and level everything between Israel and Baghdad; then, have the U.S. join in laying waste to everything between Baghdad and the sound of Hindi being spoken.

If you think you're going to pacify militant Islam with a lot of "deals", sweet talk and bribes, think again. They are believers in a theology taking it as axiomatic that you should convert, submit or die.

What's going to happen is - as usual - a lot of really good soldiers are going to get killed (already have been killed) for a lot of crap civilians who don't deserve the freedom they enjoy and seek to undermine patriotic efforts to keep it.

You know who you are: The Knights of Nuance. Oui oui on you.

Harry "Of course, neither the US or Britain partook in the holocaust. But look what the US was doing to blacks and Japanese during WWII."

I really hope you're just trying to make fun of those who espouse moral equivalence - because that statement above is a doozy.

I liked Judt's article, and wonder why you would call it "loathsome"? Whats loathsome is the occupation and the fact that the oppressed has become the oppressor. Its time for Israel to go.

hans,
Time to finish the job Hitler started, eh?

The Arabs were determined to destroy Israel and exterminate its Jewish inhabitants before there was any occupation of Judea and Samaria. The occupation arose from the fact that the Arabs made such an attempt in 1967 and got beaten. Israel begged King Hussein to stay out but no, he had to be in on the kill. The Arabs then resisted any compromise peace that would have given that area back in exchange for recognition of Israel and cessation of the war against that country.

When Barak made the statehood offer in 2000 the Palestinian Authority not only rejected it, but within a few months started the current war of murder against Israel. It was merely an intensification of the murderous attacks that had gone on since the Oslo Accords.

By the way, we hear a lot of mendacious criticism of the US and Israel from the Europeans about war crimes and violations of international law. Everything the Palestinians do in their war is a violation of international law, such as the Geneva Conventions. From suicide bombing attacks on civilians to shooting five year olds in their beds to transporting their bombs and terrorists in ambulances they are lawless. Yet the Europeans not only give them a pass on this, while making up lying slanders about the US and Israel, but actually finance such criminality (money is fungible-look it up-and the money the EU gives Arafat helps provide for the suicide belts).

Harry,
WWII internment of Americans of Japanese Ancestry did not kill them. They were not sent to extermination camps, nor were all of them sent to camps during the war. The Navy resisted the whole matter. The US government has also atoned for it, admitting it was wrong and paying compensation to those who were wronged.

Slavery is not comparable to extermination either. People who wax indignant about slavery in the past might well direct their attention more profitably to the current upsurge in slavery accompanying the rise of Islamic militancy.

Finally I meant it when I wrote of the US and Britain being the most favorable places for Jews. No mobs baying for Jewish blood, no totalitarian governments sending them to their deaths, prejudice becoming insignificant in a remarkably short time in historical terms. I might well have included Germany, where for about a century Jewish people wre remarkably successful, if it were not for the Nazis and the Holocaust, but that is a pretty big if, as even you ought to be able to see.

Ilana:

Why is there one law for Israel and another for Arabs? Why is it that all Jews, citizens all, were evicted from Arab nations but the world insists that Arabs in Israel must have the same rights as Jews, even though most Israeli Arabs are hostile to the Israeli state.

The logical thing surely is that when two people cannot live in peace with each other, it is better they divorce and live apart, preferably separated by a geographic obstacle, such as a river. This amounts to partition, but it is the sensible way forward, particularly when Arabs are driven by a religious pychosis to murder Jews.

"If, afterwards, the new Palestinian state were to attack Israel it would then be clear to everyone where right and wrong lay, and Israel would be free to defend itself and call on the UN for support if necessary."

Please. It wouldn't be the Palestinian state attacking Israels. It would be "these nasty terrorist organizations that we are trying to control, or at least arrange a hudna with, but it is so hard because we are just a poor small state decimated by decades of brutal occupation, and if you just give us more money, EU, then we can start the process of combating these terror organizations within our midst, but not just yet..."

Any self defensive moves by Israel would be met by "How can the nasty Jooos attack the nascent state of Palestine. See. They really didn't want a 2 state solution. It was just a pretense, so that they can keep oppressing the Palestinians..."

As for Israel calling on the UN for support, that is the biggest laugh I've had in years.

"some of those places have been there for over 30 years, hardly a 'settlement'"

Some of them have had continual Jewish populations for thousands of years, as Hebron did before the massacre of 1929. The "West Bank" IS the heart of Jewish historical residence. It should only be given up in exchange for a real durable peace, and then only with guarantees that Jews can live there and visit holy and historical sites. But I won't hold my breath.

haris theridoupolous:

Your name sounds Greek. So what I want to know is why you people want to have a separate state from Turkey. What is the matter with you Greeks that you want to preserve your culture, language, and national history? How racist. You should melt away into a greater pan-Muslim state run by Turkey. After all, you've oppressed the Turks for years.

You have no claim to that territory - don't tell me about Mt. Olympus - that's just religion. And there were never any temples there anyway - that's just mythology. And most of you don't even practice the ancient Greek religion anymore anyway - so some of you are secular hypocrites and some of you are religious fanatics: more reason you shouldn't have a state.

I bet I could pull together a UN vote against your state - after all, Muslims don't like you and Greece doesn't have any oil.

If you really want freedom how can anyone be against a free country like Israel?

Israel is a free country

Free to all religions, sexual orientations and peoples

Why would anyone not support a free people in a free land?

"Why would anyone not support a free people in a free land?"

Because they're JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS!

Let's see: how 'bout we sweet talk these Islamist fanatics. Or maybe we can change their theology through rigorous discourse? Appeal to their better nature?

...or kill the motor flutters.

Please do not forget that the very crux of this problem lies in the Palestinian Charter, whose objectives are the total destruction of Israel and to "Drive every last Jew into the sea and kill the remainder".

In the face of that infamous document there is no alternative on the part of the Israelis, but to push the Arab/Pals back into the Stone Age unless there is a complete and heart felt repudiation of that document. It's called The Palestinian Charter in case you haven't read it and it is available in toto on so many websites that it is impossible to name them all. The JPost is just one that keeps it around UNEDITED and not commented upon for the edification of the ignorant.

That simple fact is contained in the PA Charter and is the focal point around which that entire infamous document is written. That 'document' sates that there can never be peace with Israel until all of the Jews are dead or gone from Holy Islamic soil. It is a document dedicated to murder and mayhem and there is no way to hide from it. The 'destruction of the Nation of Israel' is what the whole mess is about. None of the other BS is even relevant until that document is either destroyed, refuted by all Pal/Arabs or in some other way completely invalidated.

I am a Native American with more friends on both sides of The Green Line than you can obviously number in toto. I do business over there on an almost daily basis and I travel there several times each year. I was buying a magazine at a news stand in Jerusalem when a "Stupefied Islamist Bomber" blew himself up in an ice cream and yogurt shop... I was close enough to smell the blood and feel the heat of the blast and when I got there to render what aid I could I had the 'privilege' of having a nineteen year old Israeli Mother die right in my arms while her six month old little girl was screaming next to me. I keep the blood stained suit I was wearing as a reminder of just why I neither like nor trust these deeply antisemitic Jew-hating Arabs - period...

My own personal "Pro Israeli" stance has been gleaned from years of personal experience with the 'problem' since I travel there on business and to visit with old friends at least 4-5 months of each and every year.

I KNOW, intimately whereof I speak. If it were my choice rather than Ariel Sharons' those tanks surrounding that old terrorist, Egyptian Midgets compound would have leveled it about five minutes after they were in position. Then the IDF would have driven what was left of those idiots into the Arabian Desert where they belong.

Only about 5% of them are native to the ground they are fighting over anyway. The rest are the dregs of the Arab world sent there by those governments who don't want them anywhere near them.

My only question about any of this is why in the hell Israel (which has whipped the pants off these cowards 4 times now hasn't already just packed the whole bunch off to the Arabian Desert and let their Saudi/Iranian supporters feed, clothe and medicate them at their expense and get on with building their own nation into a world power.

I started out feeling that there just had to be something very wrong with the Jews. Then I did the research and the study required and now I think that there is something genetically wrong with the Arafrauds and that they really have no place in this modern world. It is now the year 2002(later on their calendar)and these people are still hung up at about the eleventh Century AD. That may or may not be their fault but it certainly isn't the fault of the Jews.

Sure, there is wrong on both sides of this argument, but when one side is dedicated to the destruction of the other and that side keeps trying to make peace with the murdering b*stards it begins to look like a suicidal preoccupation with "Political Correctness".

I, also know that there is absolutely no hope for peace for the rest of us until this thing is settled once and for all and the sooner the better. Until we end it it will continually be used as another 'excuse' for Arab recalcitrance and Muslim hatred of everything civilized...

Greywolf - Interesting. I had you down as an armchair activist, sitting in a bedsit somewhere in London. Oh well, maybe you are.

My background is Native American (11/16ths I think)and I was born on a 'Reservation' which is now a sovereign nation thanks to a tremendously successful lawsuit against the U.S. government. We even have a few more 'surprises' in the works for our good old Uncle Sam. I am also University educated (Masters Degree in Poly Sci) at a major world recognized University.

My ancestry IS Native American, there are a couple of 'Taffys' and an Irishman or two hiding up there in my family tree.

I still remember, vividly my 'Taffy' Grandfather sitting on our front porch surrounded by a dozen or so 'halfbreed' kids telling stories of the Druids and the 'auld religion' the persecution of which was the reason he stowed away on a collier ship out of Cardiff Bay and came to the U.S. The tenets of that old religion dovetailed very nicely with the Native American concepts of spirituality and individual self responsibility which, aside from the greed for real estate was the major cause(along with smallpox and venerial diseases) of the killing off of large portions of the Native population(s) here. More of my people were murdered or displaced by 'missionary zeal' than by 'whiteys greed'.

Grandpas native language (Welsh Gaelic) is also, rhythmically, very much like the Native American dialects of Quechua that most of our tribes speak at home here. I think he was very comfortable in this environment and he was certainly at peace with himself and the rest of the world when he passed on. I just wish, fervently that I could distill a small piece of what that old man felt and pass it on to the rest of the world. This would be a far less bitter and contentious place if I could!

I do understand the reasons for so much of that 'Euro anger' at the US. What I have a problem with is the very 'broad brush' you people use to paint us with. Regardless of who is at the top of the heap in our government we are still the most diverse nation on this earth. We have risen from being the 'dumping ground' for European dissidents, misfits and criminals to the most powerful economic and military nation the world has ever seen because of, not in spite of, that diversity. We can be pardoned for just a bit of 'pride' in those accomplishments and if some 'arrogance' goes along with that for those who are still feeling a bit inferior and need to compensate then so be it.

You are 'barking up the wrong tree' here sir... I don't live in a London bedsit (Central Valley of California is where I live). And I don't read the U.S bashing Manchester Guardian either.

Poetic justice is the best kind!!!

In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man.

Cultivated people foster what is good in others, not what is bad. Petty people do the opposite.

You cannot learn without already knowing.